Rich People

Being rich can bring out either of two things. Some people become very generous and compassionate when blessed with abundance. Others become self-seeking and, ironically, want even more.

Many people become something else the moment they acquire wealth. They turn high-handed, even towards close friends and relatives. They lose their manners, too, becoming brash and unmindful in their ways.

It’s the feeling of power, probably, that makes rich people throw their cares away. When you are powerful, you are not bound by rules — you rule! 

Rich people also tend to feel that they own other people, just because they do them certain favors every once in a while. They think that their occasional generosity entitles them to other people’s time and servitude. They demand to be top priority in other people’s lives.

We all know that being rich does not necessarily make a person more knowledgeable or wiser or better. More money does not mean more knowledge or more wisdom or more character. The value in one’s pockets does not in any way guarantee the same value in one’s being.

Incidentally, it is not only in the area of material resources that rich people can be found. There is another kind of rich people – those whose wealth is not in terms of money, but of skills or intellectual prowess. Just the same, many of them see themselves as above the rest of humanity.

I have witnessed so-called intellectuals walk away from a village meeting, because they would not “stoop too low” to the mental level of their neighbors. They’re just so sure that their ideas on anything are immutable; it bores them to have to hear the crap of lesser mortals.

Rich people seem to think they’re superior to others in everything. Many of them hold themselves to be all-around experts, from bonsai art to rocket science. They even trivialize the real experts (especially those professionals that don’t flaunt their solid backgrounds) when their ideas collide.

My friend Percival had been to the top. He worked so hard in his network-marketing business and became very rich. He also became very arrogant that even his closest friends soon distanced themselves from him.

The departure of his friends didn’t bother Percy; he was rich. He used to tell me that people are like ants; “they are naturally drawn to sweet things.” Percy was a sweet thing; he had money.

Percy has since had a series of downfalls in business. Many of his ventures have flopped. He no longer has as much as he used to; no longer as sweet.

His birthday party last week was rather lonely. There were more people in the catering crew than at the guests’ tables. Percy said he invited everyone, about 30 of the old troop of friends. Only two of us came.

The others did not want to cross paths with Percy again. They had seen him at his ugliest during his heydays. He had hurt and insulted them many times.

Some rich people remain well grounded despite their fortunes. “Stewards, not owners,” say these fortunate ones who have not been corrupted by their wealth. They consider their possessions as not their own, but something merely put in their trust, to be shared to others.

Rich people – in whatever form their riches may be – should be grateful, not boastful of their advantage in life. Ostentatious display of good fortune will only emphasize the lack of others. And wielding power will only breed enmity.

Impudence, including the type that grows from one’s earnest labors, does not take one anywhere, except perhaps deeper into the pit of his own desolation. Nothing lasts in this world. It is unwise to anchor one’s being on something so fickle like good fortune.  

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